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Arlene’s Very Merry Christmas
Arlene’s Very Merry Christmas is a traditional 2d animated christmas-themed theatrical short. The short was released alongside The Curse of the Platinum Python, which was around the time of christmas. It is the first theatrical short that wasn’t a pilot episode or a full-length episode. Plot ''Note: Perspectives will swap from time to time'' Prologue It’s the month of December and all of DiamondVille is getting ready for the festive season. Indeed, absolutely everyone has their trees ready, their gifts ready, their decor ready, yes siree. Well, there are some people just setting up the finishing touches. One of those people being Arlene and some of her friends and family. They were still prepping their Christmas. They got their tree decorated, their decor all set up, all that’s left are the gifts. First of, Arlene needed to get something for her family, but she couldn’t get everything they want all within the time since she’s short on money. With Tiberius, he’s still in need to find a gift for his 3 companions, Teresa, Trevor, and Arlene. But he’s not sure what to give them, which is why he tries to find out what they want. Later on, we see the kids, Amber, Junior, Crystal, Mikey, and Tiffy. They can’t decide what to give a present to and they don’t want to disappoint the other. Tiffy comes up with an idea. She pulls out her Santa hat and tells them to write their names on a tiny piece of paper, put it in the hat, and draw a name from the hat, and whoever’s name they draw, they’ll give a present to them. Tiffy’s Perspective As for Tiffany, she draws Crystal’s name and thinks she can get her something. She looks at the stuff Crystal’s interested in. She thinks of getting her fireworks, but she’s still goes to crazy with them. She thinks of getting her a ribbon for air formations, but they’re all to short. She thinks maybe of getting her a light up costume to give her flights at night bright, but she’s not the dressing type. At that point, Tiffy was stumped. She needed to get Crystal to tell her what she wants without her finding out she was picked. After a few hours, Tiffy almost felt like giving up. She had to think like Crystal to find something that would impress her. She then realized she can think like anyone and tries to think of something Crystal would love. Then she had one answer in her head that would be personal. Cookies. She thought maybe she could make some cookies for Crystal. She then runs to Chef Danishevsky’s to ask if he can help her make some cookies. But there was a problem, she forgot he was on holiday vacation at Finland. She was completely stumped. She had to find someone to help out. She eventually bumped into Junior. As for her, she drew Amber and she felt like she needed to give her some sort of dress. Tiffy runs over to Junior to ask her if she can help her out for a moment. She asks what for. She explains she drew Crystal’s name and that she wants to make her cookies for her gift. Junior claims she might be a bit busy, since she drew Amber’s name and needs to get her something elegant, like a dress or a crystal. Tiffy needed to find a way for her to help. She offered Junior to help her find something for Amber if she helps her out with the cookies. Junior accepts the deal saying they’ll have to make this quick. Junior and Tiffy get the ingredients to make a batch of diamond-shaped cookies with blue icings and yellow frosting to make a lightning symbol in the center of the cookie. It was done to represent Crystal's name and personality. We then cut to a cooking montage, where we'll see Junior and Tiffy making little messes, mixing the ingredients, adding the decoration and frosting to the cookies, and tasting the cookie batter and some of the frosting. After that, all they had to do now is place tin foil onto the tray to keep the cookies fresh. Tiffy thanks Junior for the help and then gets ready to help her with Amber's gift. Crystal’s Perspective With Crystal, she drew Junior’s name and that right there was a big no-no. Crystal and Junior are a bit of polar opposites and she doesn’t have any idea on what to give Junior. She thought Junior likes even the most small and minor things, so she thinks of getting her a lavender scented candle, to which lavender is Junior’s favorite kind of scent from nature. Looking for the candle, Crystal saw there was no Lavender Candles available at this time. She had to make a change plans. Suddenly, she bumped into Ripjaw, who was looking for a Dark Violet Scarf. Crystal apologized for that and Ripjaw apologizes back, saying it was mainly his mistake. He then asks why she’s here and when she explains to him she was finding a gift for Junior, he questioned why she was getting something here. She tells him that Junior is a nature girl, she loves stuff from nature like flowers. Maybe a lavender scented candle would’ve been perfect, but their all out. Ripjaw suggests why not give her a real lavender. Crystal says that’s pretty worthless to get her something that won’t last even with great care. Ripjaw claims he saw an immortal flower patch back at that forest. It'll last forever. He tells her to follow him. At the forest, Crystal and Ripjaw are looking for the patch. After a few minutes of searching, Crystal sees a flower patch with loads of lavenders over there. She asks Ripjaw if that's the right one, and he says it is. But it's guarded by a bear-sized wolf. Crystal suggests fighting it, but she doesn't want to look like some hag who fought a bear. Ripjaw says he'll keep it distracted with his lucky bone. Ripjaw performs his invisibility form and whistles towards the wolf. As it wakes up, it sees the bone floating in the air. "Come on boy. Go get it. Come on." He says as he throws the bone. Crystal then runs up and picks off 7 lavenders and shout out to Ripjaw that she got it. Oh, Crystal was an idiot. She realized she drew the wolves attention. As the wolf turns around to see Crystal steal the flowers, it gets ready to pounce on her. But Ripjaw quickly grabs onto its leg before it could even go to her. Then he hooks it onto a tree branch where it struggles to get out. Crystal starts to laugh and gloat at the wolf trying to struggle its way out. She and Ripjaw try to make a run for it. Crystal then takes an empty vase from the church, fills it up with water and dirt, and plants the lavenders in it. Ripjaw is pleased to see how she went this far for her sister. Crystal says she couldn't have done it without him. Ripjaw took that a compliment and began to blush. Crystal, seeing this, started to blush as well. She then thanks him for all of that and Ripjaw tells her she's welcome. Mikey’s Perspective Mikey goes to the church so he could plan off what to give whoever he drew. When he got there and looked at the name, she was paralyzed and traumatized. It turns out he drew Tiffany’s name. Seeing this, he passed out. If you recall, Mikey has a huge crush on Tiffy. That‘s basically more of a crisis than a problem. This could‘be been his big moment to give Tiffany something to show his feelings to her. He uses the time to plan off what Tiffany would like. Mikey goes to everyone in town to ask some citizens about what he could give to Tiffy that’s shows feelings. Some people say he’s gotta give her something that comes from the heart. Maybe serenade her, she’ll love that. Mikey takes their advice, but he needed to think up a song that would show his feelings. He went to the church to think about what to sing to her. As he tries to think up a song, Arlene walking to see him with trying to sing. She asks what is he singing. He says he’s trying to make a song for Tiffany for christmas. Arlene says she could help him out if he wants. He says if she has the time, maybe she could help a little. Arlene gives Mikey some ideas for what to sing to Tiffy and after finishing, he gets ready to practice singing. He thanks her for helping out and they give each other a hug. Tiberius’s Perspective Tiberius is taking a look at the snowy view at DiamondVille up on the mountains. He seems to enjoy this type of weather and terrain. He looks out into the sky to hope for Santa to give the children of DiamondVille what they want. Tiberius then wonders what to do for Christmas. He thinks maybe he should give his best friends, Trevor, Teresa, and Arlene, something special for this special holiday. he goes down to DiamondVille to find something that would be special to them. But after a while, there‘s rarely anything that he thought would be great for each of them. After a while, Tiberius approaches Taylor and Tiago and asks them if there’s anything around that he could give his best friend, his wife, and his prodigy. Taylor suggests to make something that they would all love and enjoy. Something they could all share. Tiberius says he’s not sure what to make them. Taylor and Tiago offer their help and Tiberius says if they help him, they all share the present. First, they need the proper material to make it. They’ll need some metal, stained glass, light bulbs, and some blue paint. They’re almost finish with their invention. They just need to program it to show it off in different colors. Tiberius programs the machine to glow in many different colors, including white, yellow, blue, red, green, magenta, purple, etcetera. It’s beautiful. They call it, The Light Beacon, a machine that’s performs a literal light show using the light inside of the stain glass that’ll often spin around where it would glow in multiple different colors. Let’s prepare this thing. Arlene’s Perspective We return to Arlene, where she seems to be in a bit of a rut. She has trouble thinking of what to give her family. She tries to get her mind off of the tension and use the time to help out everyone else. She helps people with wrapping the gifts they’re giving, people trying to set up and fix their christmas lights, and people who are trying to shovel the snow out of the way. But all of this helping just gets her a bit more tense because she struggles on the parts that seem hard. In fact, she’s so tense, she started to feel like something was getting in her throat. She ran to the nearest restroom and was barfing and vomiting and eventually blackout. It’s as if she’s letting all of this get in her head. After a while, Arlene wakes up from unconscious laying on the snow. Taylor and Tiago look at her, wondering if she’s alright. She claims it was just a bit of tension sickness. Tiago thinks maybe Arlene to take a little break to talk about why she seems a bit tense. She decides to take him on with that and explain what she’s doing. She says she‘s trying to think of what to give them and the kids something that would make them all happy equally. Taylor and Tiago feel flattered about what she’s doing but they tell her she doesn’t need to give them anything. They’ve already gotten what they wanted, her. She’s confused by this. Taylor says he’s happy to have her as his wife and Tiago says he’s happy to have her as his mom. Arlene felt touched to hear them think that and she goes in for a hug. She decides she’ll take a break and let all of the christmas cheer and snow goes to her. As Arlene was making and wrapping a present for someone she thinks really does deserves it, she eventually overhears Mikey trying to think up a song. She goes in to ask him what’s with the singing. He says he’s trying to think up a song for Tiffy for Christmas. She offers to help him think up a song for him and after that, she leaves his room so he could practice singing the song. Arlene seems to feel proud of herself for accomplishing parenthood. It’s just a blessing. It makes her wonder...and then, without warning, she gets that feeling in her throat again. Oh no, she about to barf again. She runs to the bathroom quickly and starts to vomit again. She begins to wonder what the heck is happening with her. It’s not tension, so what is it? Arlene decides to maybe head to the hospital and see if there’s a problem with her After 30 minutes at the hospital, Arlene's checkup was finished. Dr. Brickette told her the results are being processed. Arlene asked her if she found anything wrong with me. It's not one of those tension moments. Brickette says she may have found something wrong with her. Nothing severe though. Arlene says the vomit isn't usual unless it's medical or you're tense. Brickette says unless you're sick or paranoid, you're fine. A nurse gives Brickette the results and she was speechless. Arlene asks what it was and would later find out that she was...(Oh, I'm gonna get a lot of words and questions for saying this). Arlene is now pregnant with her 5th child. She was paralyzed in surprise for a brief moment and then she felt...proud of herself. She started to feel like she was about to cry in happiness. That's more than big news. Final Preparations After Amber, Junior, and Crystal finish their presents, they put them on the table to be ready to get later on. Eventually, Arlene enters the church is excitement as she prances and twirls around. The kids are wondering why she seems so ecstatic. Amber comes up and asks what’s all the happiness about. Arlene tells her she’s got big news. Junior and Crystal come up as they were intrigued. Junior asks what’s the news. Arlene passes her medical results paper to Junior. Junior read it and started to feel a bit jittery. Amber was backing away from her as if it looked like Junior was about to explode, figuratively. Amber snatches the paper out of her hands and reads it and Crystal tries to look over it as well. Both of them stood in silence as they found out their gonna have a new baby sibling. Junior all of a sudden shrieks with joy. Amber asks if anyone else knows about it. Arlene says she hasn’t told anyone else yet, but she will tell everyone else. Arlene asks what they were doing. Amber says they were getting their presents ready. Amber says she has Mikey’s gift, Crystal says she has Junior’s gift, and Junior says she’s got Amber’s gift. Arlene says that was an interesting idea. She helped Mikey with the gift he was giving. Junior asks who is it for. Arlene says she think it was Tiffany. Amber says “Oh, of course”. Crystal says they’ll talk more about this later, it’s time for the Christmas Party. She’ll round up everybody ok. Deacon’s Thoughts We’ll take a break from DiamondVille citizens and get to who really has a hard time dealing with Christmas, Deacon. He had nothing to celebrate this holiday, and for good reason. Deacon pretty much hated Christmas, the whole Christmas season. Course, there are lots of possible reasons he didn’t like Christmas, but the main reason was cause he didn’t have any Christmas spirit in his heart, especially since it’s...well...I’d say two sizes to small. Deacon felt as if there was no reason for it to exist. He wondered if there was something he could do to get his mind off of it. Some drogans tried to keep their mouths shut about Christmas to prevent any sort of bother or tantrum. But the only thing going in his head was that song the citizens of DiamondVille sung every year. He thought of putting an end to all of Christmas. But how. Then he got an idea. No presents, no decor, no lights, no trees, no Christmas. He decided while DiamondVille was distracted with their Christmas Party, he and some Drogans will go to town and steal all of their Christmas stuff. The clock stroke at 10:00pm, just 2 more hours until Christmas Eve. They all had to make this quick. Once all of DiamondVille was at the church for the Christmas party, Deacon and his Drogan friends rode down the hills, through the snow, to the gates of DiamondVille, where they went above the entrance and get ready to break into the houses to steal their presents, stockings, lightings, trees, you name it. At that point everything was smooth sailing, up until, this happened. Before the drogans could enter, they had to hide as someone was out in the roads looking to see if everyone was in. It was actually Arlene. Deacon was mainly exposed and he tried to hide in the snow. But his shaking only gets the snow off of him and he gets caught and Arlene runs up towards him wondering why he’s here. Deacon had to think up a lie, and he actually thought it up quick, being so smart and slick. He says he was just strolling around DiamondVille looking at these decorations and lightings. Arlene wonders if he even likes Christmas. Deacon explains he doesn’t know Christmas that much cause he never thought to celebrated it. Arlene almost feels sorry for him. She tells him maybe he should come to the Christmas party. Deacon decides to go with Arlene on that one. As they walk, he quietly tells the drogans to hold off on the plan. And when their gone, the Drogans decide to go follow them without leaving themselves audible and visible. Arlene and Deacon go into the church and some people were concerned seeing Deacon here. Arlene explains he’s just her to see what Christmas is all about. Taylor asks if it’s a good idea. Deacon explains there’s no tricks this time and then he crosses his heart swearing on his majesty’s throne that they’ll be fine. They teach him all about christmas stuff, like the presents, the trees, the decor, and of course, Santa Claus. Deacon feels some sort of feeling that there’s more to this holiday than before, but he’s not convinced it‘s heartwarming. The Drogans are peaking on the skylights of the church, where luckily it was night time so they wouldn’t be visible from a shadow. They see Deacon is smiling a bit. After a few minutes, it was time to give away presents. As everyone gave each other their presents, Deacon felt left out. He remembers at christmas morning, his chimney is filled with more coal. He realizes that Santa was giving him and Kyle coal thought the past Christmas times for being abusive. Arlene sees Deacon wasn’t feeling depressed from that reason. She walks up to him and asks what’s eating. Deacon says he has been involved in Christmas in the past, but he didn’t realize it. He asks why he never got presents from his past. Arlene explains the bad ones don’t get their presents and knowing Deacon, he’s gotten no presents at the time. Knowing all of this, Deacon started to feel the need to cry. Arlene stopped him from crying, saying he does have something. She passes him a present she made for him. Deacon opens it up and it’s a talking toy reindeer. Deacon looked at it, thinking someone really had thought about him. He really loves this present. He gives Arlene a big thank you for it and tries to go in for a hug. Everyone looks towards them seeing Deacon has some sort of heart in him. At midnight, Everyone is finished with all of the party and gets ready for the next day. Deacon then leaves and thanks Arlene for all of this. He then leaves and says “Oh, and one more thing, Arlene. Congratulations on her new child.“. For some strange reason, he found out about her pregnancy and left her wondering how he knew. And apparently, she wasn’t the only one who heard him. So did the rest of her family and friends. They asked what Deacon was talking about. Arlene explains she’s having another baby and they were pretty surprised, especially Taylor, Tiberius, and Tiffany. They thought that was great news. It was basically an amazing gift, a new child. That reminded Tiffy about the rest of the gifts. She gives Crystal her tray of cookies and she really appreciated the thought. Crystal didn’t just like it, she loved it. Crystal then gave Junior her present to her, the lavenders and she loved it too. She smelt them and felt a feeling of happiness. Junior then gave her gift to Amber, a ruby dress. And so forth, Amber gave Mikey her gift, a special magic kit. At that point everyone was happy, but then Tiffy was like what about her. Mikey says he’s got it. He gathers his courage and asks Crystal for a guitar. He took a deep breath in and out and began to start singing his song to Tiffy (Begin to perform “Special Song to You”) Tiffy felt touched and happy about that song. She really loved it. Mikey was pleased to hear that and he went to hug Tiffany and she not only hugged back, but she gave Mikey a kiss on the cheek. Mikey felt paralyzed and lovestruck from that kiss. You can tell things were getting more interesting. Epilogue (DiamondVille’s Conclusion) The entire town of DiamondVille forms a ring around the tree standing hand in hand, and began to sing for the festive season. (Begin to perform “Welcome Christmas”) We see Deacon looking towards DiamondVille in Christmas cheer. He seems to be enjoying christmas time. The drogans sees this and decides to finally let their christmas talks free to be heard. Deacon then pretends to not like hearing about it and orders them to keep their trap shut about that holiday. The drogans are startled and the start roaming in circles in fear. Deacon then laughs saying he's just kidding. The drogans start to laugh with Deacon. Deacon then looks back towards DiamondVille and plays with his reindeer toy. Epilogue (The man we all know) We eventually go to Mystico where we go to the Big Prison. Why? Well, let’s just say Arlene’s got some presents to give to a few people there. As we look down there, we see Kyle and his daughter, Tyra, just laying down, thinking on what they’re doing for their future. He and Zira were separated after Zira was sent to a much secure cell area. Kyle wonders if he’ll ever reunite with her. Tyra tells him there is faith. We also see Donovan and Dominic who are guarding the area and Phantom who is using his giant screen TV Tablet. All of them eventually get a word that they’ve received a package. Donovan goes to get it and it is filled with a few presents from Arlene. One for Donovan, one for Dominic, one for Phantom, and there’s even one for Kyle and one for Tyra. Donovan has gotten 5 issues of Figureman Comics and Dominic got a neck massager. They eventually find Phantom’s present in there and it‘s kind of big. Phantom opens it to see a Lifetime supply of Chicken Wings from Eat’n and Dine’n. He opens one up, AND THERE STILL HOT he thought. Kyle sees his colleagues happy, and he kind of wishes he was given respect on this holiday. Donovan then sees there’s two more presents in here, and they’re addressed to Kyle and Tyra. He tosses them up to him and Kyle is confused as to why they got a present. Tyra was wondering what Arlene would possible get her. She opened it up and sees she got a smartphone. Kyle is intrigued and opens his present. It’s a mechanical Star that looks like the amulet. It even has his name on it, and a button. He presses the button and it levitates into the air and play The Nutcracker. The colors on the star also light up to the rhythm of the music. Kyle is touched to see Arlene giving him a present and he loves it. He wonders what and how she’s doing right now. Cast Main * Jessica Dicicco as Arlene * Tara Strong as Amber * Nika Futterman as Crystal * Cathy Weseluck as Mikey * Andrea Libman as Tiffy * Kari Wahlgren as Junior * Ted Lewis as Deacon * Robert Nadal as Ripjaw * Carlos Alazraqui as Taylor * Elijah Wood as Tiago * Robin Williams as Tiberius * Brian Stepanek as Trevor * Jill Talley as Teresa Cameo * Will Ferrell as Kyle * Ashley Johnson as Tyra * Paul Reubens as Donovan * Jim Cummings as Dominic * Robert Nadal as Phantom * Mike Bell as Santa Claus (Archive Voice) Acquirements The short has had a bit of collaboration with Universal and Comcast. Robert approached them because of their How the Grinch Stole Christmas film adaptation. Both Robert and Viacom were giving the rights to use the song “Welcome Christmas” for their short. It is the only time such project did that. Reception and Home Media Although the short was well received by fans and critics alike, it have a lot of mix reviews as well. The short was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film for 2012, but sadly, it lost to Disney’s Paperman. A year after, the short would be released on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 1, 2013. The DVD and about-Ray features The Arlene’s Very Merry Christmas short, Behind the Scenes on this short, a few In-Process Scenes, plus 5 Arlene bonus episode. These include Gifts and Presents, Snowed In, Winter Wonderland, and Under the Weather Parts 1 and 2. Trivia * Arlene's Very Merry Christmas was DHX Media's first theatrical project * According to Robert, the short was supposed to be a predecessor and prologue to Arlene 4 * Some moments with Deacon like his first thoughts on Christmas references Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas * This was originally supposed to be a TV Movie, but it was turned into a theatrical short to prevent any competition with Nickelodeon’s other christmas special “It’s a Spongebob Christmas”, which aired around the same time * The short was dedicated to Brittany Murphy, the original voice of Arlene, who passed away in 2009 Logos Sequences Category:Shorts Category:DHX Media Category:Nickelodeon Category:Christmas specials